Drinking Diet Soda with Alcohol Can Make You Drunker

Are you a diet soda drinker or do you stick to the regular stuff? If you choose diet as a mixer for your alcohol, you may be getting drunker than your peers.

According to NPR's The Salt, mixing diet soda with alcohol makes people drunker than when regular soda is used. Apparently, the differing levels of drunkenness have to do with the amount of sugar involved. Full sugar sodas keep drinkers from feeling the effects of the alcohol as much because sugar helps slow down the process of alcohol absorption into the bloodstream.

Several studies have reached similar conclusions. One professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center explained, "It is not that diet soda accelerates intoxication. Rather, the sugar in regular soda slows down the rate of alcohol absorption." When diet soda is involved, the alcohol makes a quicker trip from the stomach to the bloodstream.

Cecile Marczinski at Northern Kentucky University ran the latest version of the study. Her interest in alcohol absorption was piqued by the mixer itself. "I wanted to know if the choice of a mixer could be the factor that puts a person above or below the legal limit," stated Marczinski."

Marczinski's study found that subjects' Breath Alcohol Concentrations were 18% higher when drinking the same amount of alcohol mixed with diet soda instead of regular. The most important finding may have been that the subjects didn't feel more intoxicated after drinking alcohol with a diet mixer. This data led to the conclusion that the unawareness could increase the risk of drinking and driving.

Do you drink diet soda with alcohol? Will you be more careful after learning about these results?